Over Him
by ThatHPFan
Summary: 'That smile made me melt. I love you too, James. I love you too, Prongs. Just say it, idiot. I love you. I love you. "I love you." That was all I could get out. I was too overwhelmed.' Slash Remus/James . Minor adult situations. Please give me feedback about whether you like this ship! Disclaimer: J.K.Rowling owns the Potterverse and all of its characters, not me.


How long had I known? It wasn't easy to tell, to be honest. I think it started when I met him. He was beautiful. His hair was amazing; soft, supple locks that fell down around his eyes and ears, shining in the sunlight to look almost brown and growing thick in the winter to be black as the charred night. His face was captivating. He had pale, smooth cheeks that always played host to a grin. His lips were full and red, and his neck was strong and muscled. I think what really caught me, though, were those eyes.

Oh gosh, his eyes were breathtaking. He had small, round glasses that sat on the bridge of his perfect nose, covering the eyes of an angel. We sometimes called him puppy-dog because of those eyes. We had no doubt that when teachers suddenly decided to let him off without detention it was because of his eyes. They were large and blue. It's so rare to see black hair with blue eyes, but it looked amazing on him.

When I thought about his body, I thought about a god. He was muscular, but had fair skin. He was tall but full, and he knew how to use his body to be persuasive, especially when in conversation with those of the opposite sex. I was occasionally lucky enough to glimpse him without a top, and I will never forget what I saw. A full set of abs that could grind cheese, and the muscles on his back rippled when he walked. He had a fair amount of hair for a seventeen-year-old. His chest had a smattering of black curls; just enough to show off when the top button of his shirt "accidentally" fell open. If you followed the hair down, it thickened up again as it fell below…

I couldn't think about that. That would just be too far, wouldn't it? We were friends. I mean, it's one thing to casually compliment each other's looks, but that was getting a little… out of my league. It is true. We were friends. We spent many days together, with or without the others. I always felt something during our times alone, but I brushed it aside as his enthusiasm, or my exhaustion. I tried not to think about it. It was in my moments alone that I allowed these thoughts to consume me.

I always told myself that these would just be a skeleton in my closet. Just one more thing I needed to hide from the world. Not like I didn't already have that problem. Only one other soul knew. She knew everything about me. She, like him, had figured it out pretty fast. She, like him, didn't desert me. Lily stayed with me, helping me through. One night, we were down by the lake. It was the New Moon, which makes me feel more energetic at night than during the day, and I couldn't sleep. Going down to the Common Room, I found her slumped on the couch, staring into the fire. She told me she was thinking about James, and I admitted that I was too.

As we walked, I told her everything. I burst into tears when I said it, because I knew that it was the end of our friendship. I knew that she would leave me forever. But when I said those words, just three words, she grew sympathetic. She loved him too. That's what she told me, and I believed her. So we sat by the lake, talking about him, and we both cried. She told me that she loved him, but that she was finding it hard to admit. I knew how that went. That night, we became tied by a bond stronger than no other. It was love. Love for the same man.

We never regarded each other as competition. We both knew that for me, it was impossible. It was better for both of us if I encouraged her to go after him. He would always be the sore spot that I could never quite reach, the key that was always in the last place you look, the store that closes at one when you show up at one-thirty.

She pursued him viciously, and it was his dream come true when she accepted his pleas to go out with him. They began dating at the end of seventh year, and they got married about four months after graduation. I was happy for her. I really was. James made her eyes spark to life that neither I nor anybody else could provide. When they announced wedding plans, I forced a smile and congratulated her loudly. I never stopped thinking about him.

When Lily told me she was pregnant, she expected a positive reaction. She got the forced smile and the loud congratulations again. This time, however, James wasn't there, and I had never fooled her. I evaded her prying questions, and she told me that she understood my pain, but that it was for the best. There was no comfort in her eyes. I became cold towards her, and I saw a flicker of real grief, but she simply smiled sadly and bid me farewell. After she left, I became more and more depressed. I felt like trash. My feelings for him made me a freak. I wasn't human. I had never been human, but I had never been less human either. I knew that I didn't deserve to see him again, and I told myself that this was the reason Lily stopped visiting me. I missed her popping round for a drink every other day, and I missed having talks late into the night about him.

I drew out of the depression as time passed. My memories of James grew fuzzier as I began to see him less. When I did see him, it was with a very pregnant young wife on his arm. This was not the beautiful young man I had grown up with. I could never forget that James, but I began to systematically bury the thoughts I had about him. I told myself I was getting over him. That was until the day when he came. It was with the name of his new son, Harry James Potter.

I collapsed. Everything that I had tidied away over the months resurfaced, and I saw him again, not as the parent and husband who worked as an Auror, but as the mischievous marauder that I grew up with. I remembered him standing before us as he contemplated diving into the lake. Everything that I had stuck in a file labeled 'James memories' came back to me, and I became overwhelmed.

He tried to comfort me. I ignored him, but it was hard when his firm hands were around my shoulders and my face came so close to his. I refused to tell him what was wrong, and he grew frustrated. Claiming he would be back in a few days with Lily, he swung the front door open. "I love you."

I froze. Had that just come out of my mouth? Was he gone? My brain feverishly hoped so from where I was curled up on the couch, but when I heard him turn around and ask what I had said, my dreams shattered. I continued to ignore him, and eventually he must have left, because I cried myself to sleep with being disturbed.

Time passed again as that night faded away. I saw James and Lily again, but we never brought it up. I could tell by his awkward politeness and formality when I was around that he had not forgotten. I knew that he wouldn't. I tried to tell myself that he would wake up and dismiss it as nothing more than a dream. Indeed, if he had asked me about, I would have denied it, even if it meant denying my love. Lily began to come back around, asking me about James, and we talked just like we used to. Now, though, I was much more guarded about what I said. She knew. I knew that James told her.

I saw Harry. He was a beautiful boy, and looked just like his father. Except that he didn't have those beautiful blue eyes. He had Lily's eyes. He was growing steadily, and Lily asked me what I wanted him to call me; 'Uncle Remus' or 'Cousin Lupin'. I settled for Remus. If it was anything I could do to make it up to James, I would be the best damn friend that kid ever had, and I figured it would be best to start off on a first-name basis. Lily seemed uneasy about this but did not object.

As my twenty-first birthday approached, my career began to fail. It began to fail as I tried to begin it. The number of applications I sent out was parallel to how desperate I became for work. Most businesses turned me down because of my background, meaning, my Lycanthropy. After begging Albus Dumbledore, he began paying me, from his own pocket, to work for the Order as a "species surveillance monitor". It was dangerous stuff, finding werewolf packs around the full moon and talking to them. I took a potion that made me sane while in my other form, but I had to act like I was full-on, lest they discover my ruse.

Lily and Sirius threw me a small party. About half of the Order showed up for the meal and then departed, leaving only the Marauders and Albus Dumbledore. We sat in Lily's living room in Godric's Hollow, mulling over glasses of Meade and talking. As the conversation turned towards our old memories, Lily excused herself to change Harry, asked Sirius to help her. Dumbledore seemed to sense the sudden tension in the air, as he strode out, proclaiming that he needed the loo. That left James and I alone.

He chatted weakly for a moment, trying to break the ice between us, but I just stared at him, drinking him in. He seemed to get uncomfortable, because that's when it started. He began assuring me that he knew, and that it was okay with him if I was 'that way', and that even if it made him self-conscious, it was nothing to be ashamed of. He came over and sat next to me, putting his muscled arm around my slumped shoulders, reminding me that we were still friends, we were still Marauders. I was Moony, he was Prongs.

He remembered all the good old times. I remembered them too. The way James was talking reminded me of the time in our fifth year, when he had been new to transforming and gotten himself cut, that he had talking to Madam Pomfrey in an attempt to distract her from her pointed questions. The way he was sitting reminded me of the time in seventh year when he had finally gotten Lily to go out with him and we were all celebrating with some ill-obtained Firewhiskey, and he threw his arm over my shoulder, making me turn cherry red in an instant.

He looked into my eyes and told me that he would always love me, no matter what, and that we were friends forever, and then he did something totally unexpected. He kissed me. He kissed me on the lips.

It felt like the world was crashing down around me, but I didn't care. This was what I had dreamed of for years. I was kissing James Potter. He tasted amazing, like all of my favorite flavors in one. He was ambrosia. He began to pull away, but I whimpered a little, and he stopped. He didn't exactly get into it, be he let me do it. He knew that this was what I needed. All of my senses were on fire as my tongue roamed around his mouth, soaking up every minute detail. I couldn't hear. Lily could have been standing there screaming for all I know. All I felt were my hands sliding along his shoulders and up to his hair, my fingers twisting through it and gripping it. In that one moment, the hair that I loved so much was mine.

I made the kiss as long and drawn out as I could, because I knew that there would be no coming back up for air. Once it ended, it was over. As I pulled away, I rested my forehead against his. Our breaths mingled as I studied every aspect of his godly face, from his breathtaking eyes to his baby cheeks to the nose to the lips. Then, he did something I had never even hoped for. I might have dreamt it, but it never became a conscious thought in the real world, because it was so unattainable. "I love you, Moony."

My whole world froze as these words. My eyes exploded like a broken dam as time stopped for an eternity after he said them. I love you, Moony. I cherished each word like a heavenly angel. This was my favorite birthday present. They played over and over in my head, and he smiled. That smile made me melt. I love you too, James. I love you too, Prongs. Just say it, idiot. I love you. I love you. "I love you." That was all I could get out. I was too overwhelmed.

Reluctant as I was to leave the position we were in, he pulled me up off of the couch, telling me to go home. He knew that I was in no state to hang around for the rest of the night. The look he gave me said it all. 'I'll make your excuses, just go!' I nodded, slipping out of the house and into the night, unable to keep a wide smile off of my face.

The weeks and months that followed were some of the happiest of my life. I didn't expect James to abandon Lily and Harry, proclaim his undying love for me, and whisk me away to some enchanted island for our honeymoon. I wouldn't have complained, but I didn't expect that. That didn't happen. James and I went on living our separate lives, and I didn't see him after that incident. Lily came around, but she gave no hints and asked no questions. Either James hadn't told her, or he had but told her not to mention it, most likely the former.

Lily invited me to Harry's first birthday party, which I accepted readily. The walls of the kitchen had been decorated with blue, scarlet, and gold streamers, and there were paper cutouts of snitches hanging from the ceiling. I was enjoying it until I asked where James was, to which she answered that he was working but would be back for their family party that night. My heart sunk, but a forced an outward display of cheerfulness so strong that even Lily was fooled. Harry enjoyed his gifts, especially loving the toy broom that Sirius got him. He cuddled up with my present after lunch, though; it was a huge stuffed bear. He would be as strong and handsome as his father, but twice as vicious.

After the party, Dumbledore asked to speak with me in private. He told me that he wanted to send me on a long-term, overseas mission to negotiate with the werewolves of Spain. Seeing as this would double my salary, I accepted the offer without question. Three days later, I was in Spain.

I didn't return until I heard about James and Lily's death. Tears in my eyes, I rushed blindly back to Britain, only to find Albus Dumbledore blocking my path. He told me that there was no reason to grieve, and how Sirius had betrayed them, but they hadn't stood a chance from the start. He said they fought valiantly. He told me that somehow, Harry had survived. No reason to grieve. My tears flowed freely as I returned to my dingy flat in London. I threw myself on the bed, knocking a cloud of dust into the air, and allowed my emotions to play out. By the time I had stopped crying, it was two in the morning.

I realized that the last memory I had of James was our kiss. It was my first kiss. I swore to James, in the early hours of that November morning, in a small flat in London, that I would always do what was best for his son. It was the only way I could think of to honor his memory. And as I gazed longingly at the picture of him on my bedside table, I knew that I would never forget him. I would never get over him.


End file.
